WebProNews

Tag: social networks

  • So-Called Facebook Alternative Diaspora Gets a Launch Date

    You may recall that earlier this year, Facebook took a lot of heat over user privacy. While some may still not be satisfied, the company did release simplified privacy settings in response. Around that time, however, a project called Diaspora started generating a lot of hype as a potential, open alternative to Facebook as a social network.

    Considering how early in the development process the Diaspora crew were, and how little was actually known about how it would work, it managed to create a lot of buzz and a significant amount of donations from people eager for an alternative.

    The Diaspora guys have now posted an update, saying that it will be open sourced on September 15, and claiming that is working, and  that they like it.

    Diaspora: Personally Controlled, Do-It-All, Distributed Open-Source Social Network from daniel grippi on Vimeo.

    "We are spending a good chunk of time concentrating on building clear, contextual sharing," the team says. "That means an intuitive way for users to decide, and not notice deciding, what content goes to their coworkers and what goes to their drinking buddies. We know that’s a hard UI problem and we take it seriously."

    Interestingly enough, Google released a similar functionality on its Orkut social network this past week leaving some to wonder if Google would undertake a similar strategy for its broader social network plans.

    "We aren’t going to stop working after we release," the team says. They say they will continue to develop and maintain Diaspora as a long term project. "We have shifted our development timeline accordingly, and the first release will be the beginning of something great, not a finished summer project."

    Are you looking forward to the release? Let us know.

  • MySpace Users Can Now Sync Accounts with Facebook Profiles, Pages

    MySpace has announced a new feature that lets users sync their status updates with their Facebook profiles or Pages, while also letting them share content from their MySpace page with Facebook friends.

    "Sync with Facebook allows users to keep their friends on Facebook up to date on everything, including: sharing songs, latest photos, fun game apps, and more," says MySpace’s Jennifer Ruffner.

    "The opportunities to experience and share this type of entertainment content are endless," she adds. "This is particularly exciting for artists who can now use this tool as a complement to their MySpace Music presence and share their vast library of content, including full album catalogs, to people who’ve liked their Facebook Page."

    MySpace and Facebook accounts synced

    MySpace and Facebook accounts synced

    MySpace users also have the option to sync with their Twitter accounts. To set up the feature, MySpace users can go to their settings, check the box next to Facebook or Twitter (or both), and follow the steps that appear.

  • LinkedIn Recruiter Gets New Search Filter Features

    LinkedIn has launched new search filter features for LinkedIn Recruiter. The company has taken advanced search and refinement filters that have been available, and added them to some new places.

    "To make managing large projects and pipelines easier, you’ll now be able to search and dynamically refine any list of profiles – in Projects, on the clipboard, and even within the real-time profile matches we generate with every job posting," says LinkedIn’s Prasad Gune. "For example, you can quickly filter a large pipeline by past company or refine real-time matches for job postings to show just recommended profiles in a certain location. And if you run a Talent Direct campaign on LinkedIn, you can use the same functionality to pinpoint specific candidate profiles within your results."

    LinkedIn Recruiter Gets New Search Filter Options

    "One other thing you’ll notice when in Recruiter is that you can now view sets of profiles in list or table format," adds Gune. "The default setting is list format, which enables you to use refinement filters to zero in on specific candidates, but if you prefer the table view you can switch at any time."

    Linkedin has a video about search and refinement filters available here.

    Earlier this month, LinkedIn added one-page project management and the ability to set reminders on profiles to LinkedIn Recruiter. More on these features here.

  • Facebook Talks Questions, Lists, Mobile

    As usual, Facebook is making its way into a lot of headlines for a lot of reasons. While many of them have to do with legal issues, some are also based on the social network itself and other areas of innovation.

    As reported, the company has partnered with Y Combinator to lend some support to social-minded startups. Facebook will provide product, technical and design resources.

    As far as Facebook’s own features, the questions feature the company announced recently had gone M.I.A. for some, but has now returned, as MG Siegler reports. It is, however, only available for a portion of Facebook users as this point. Facebook reportedly said that it turned the feature off for some users as they ran some tests.

    Siegler, who attended a Facebook Developer event, says that Facebook is also reconsidering its strategy for lists, as Zuckerberg apparently acknowledged that most people don’t use them. "He thinks it still has to be something like friend lists, but done a different way. He noted that they have to come up with a way for people to control each thing they want to share, but do it in a way so that the tools are really easy to use."

    Create New Lists - Friends on Facebook

    One more thing revealed at that event during a Q&A, is that Facebook has a team that is working on making the mobile experience better, including password entry.

  • Facebook Places, the Competition (Including Google) & Your Business

    A great deal of attention has been put on what Facebook Places means for the future of other check-in apps. This discussion has been around as long as the rumors of Facebook launching a location feature, which have been swirling for quite some time.

    Will you check in with Facebook Places?     Let us know.

    A lot has also been made of the increasing competition between Facebook and Google, Facebook Places adds a whole other dimension to this battle.

    Google Places and Facebook Places

    Greg Sterling at Search Engine Land compares Facebook Places to the similarly titled Google Places (a comparison that will draw a lot of attention going forward as the competition between Google and Facebook continues to heat up). As Sterling notes, businesses can claim their pages on both and use them for promotion. He writes:

    "Facebook’s Chris Cox told me that the company has created Places pages for local businesses (hundreds, thousands?). Eventually Fan Pages and Facebook Places will merge in a majority of cases. And, as mentioned, Facebook Places pages will live on the Web as well in mobile, though the locus (so to speak) of activity is bound to be mobile.

    Facebook Places will replace Facebook Fan Pages for local businesses once a business has claimed its Facebook Place page. All of these pages and the product itself relies on the Localeze database, which is also at the core of the much-less-developed Twitter Places.

    Businesses should win regardless, as now they have more massive places to market their businesses online and via mobile that will potentially reach a lot of people.

    Bing Maps and Facebook Places

    The graphic Facebook showed in its blog post announcing Facebook Places showed Google Mps, but Bing Maps has a great presence throughout the feature. Facebook uses Bing Maps to pinpoint everyone’s location-based experiences.

    "Select the Places button, find the location where you are and check-in," says Chris Pendleton of Bing. "Just like that, the check-in will flow to your profile on Facebook.com complete with a Bing Map, a pin of your location and any commentary you’ve added to your check-in."

    Facebook Places and Bing Maps

    Bing gets to pick up its nice bit of branding here, which could help it in its own competition with Google

    Effects for Fousquare (and other check-in apps)?

    Foursquare has pretty much dominated the check-in app space up to this point, but half a billion users is going to be hard to compete with. Here’s what CEO Dennis Crowley told Silicon Alley Insider:

    We already allow users to publish their 4SQ checkins into the Facebook News Feed and we’ll eventually going to allow users to push them into the Facebook Checkin Feed.  Facebook Pages Logo - a 4 in a squareI’d imagine we’ll prob pull FB checkins into 4SQ too.   We’re in the middle of a redesign and some new feature launches, so we’re going to get thru those before getting started on FB integration.

    Foursquare (and other apps in this space) still might be in trouble. The phrase "check-in fatigue" has already been thrown around a lot. Whether or not people will continue to use other services in addition to checking in with Facebook (assuming that they do use Facebook’s feature) remains to be seen.

    It does seem interesting that there is a 4 inside of a square in Facebook Places’ logo (above right), as Alexia Tsotsis points out.

    When asked about a potential Android release for Facebook Places, a Facebook representative would only say, "At this time, the Places application is available to people in the United States with mobile access to the Facebook application for iPhone or touch.facebook.com. Places is also available on browsers with HTML5 Geolocation, which is supported on devices like the iPhone, iPod Touch, Android devices and the Blackberry Torch. Places will be rolled out more broadly and to other mobile devices and the web in the future."

    For more on how Facebook Places stands to benefit your business, read here.

    Do you like the idea of Facebook Places or do you think it’s a waste of time?     Share your thoughts.

  • Facebook Tries To Own “Face” And “Book”

    Facebook Tries To Own “Face” And “Book”

    As you may have read, Facebook is suing Teachbook for using the word "book" and being a competitor. To put it in Facebook’s exact words, the company’s Director of Policy Communications, Barry Schnitt, tells WebProNews:

    "The problem is not merely that they use the word "book." You’ll notice that we have no complaint against Kelly Blue Book or Yellowbook or others. However, there is already a well-known online service with ‘book’ in the brand name that helps people connect and share. Of course the Teachbook folks are free to create a similar service for teachers or whomever they like, and we wish them well in that endeavor. What they are not free to do is trade on our name, create confusion, or dilute our brand while doing so. Additionally, it’s important to note that where there is confusion or brand dilution as there is with Teachbook and Facebook, we must enforce our rights to protect the integrity of our trademark.

    Facebook is currently trying to register the word "Face" as a trademark, TechCrunch reports. Erick Schonfeld writes, "Facebook took over the trademark application for ‘Face’ from a company in the UK called CIS Internet Limited, which operated a site called Faceparty.com. Presumably, Facebook bought the application sometime around November, 2008, which is when its lawyer started dealing with the USPTO."

    In an interesting twist, Aaron Greenspan, Mark Zuckerberg’s Harvard classmate, who claimed to have had a hand in Facebook’s creation, also has a mobile payments app called FaceCash under his Think Computer company. He is listed as a potential opposer to the "Face" mark, as Schonfeld points to.

    FaceCash from Aaron Greenspan

    Just as there are plenty of other items that use the word "book" there are plenty that use the word "face", notably, Apple’s Facetime iPhone feature, which it has been heavily marketed since the release of the iPhone 4.

    Facebook has made no indication that it intends to go after any service using "Face" in its name, just as the company told us it isn’t going after every company using "book", but considering how closely Teachbook is related to Facebook, it’s hard to say what Facebook would find too close for comfort.

  • Why Stop at the Web? Facebook to Take Over the World?

    With its Open Graph announcement at F8 earlier this year, Facebook appeared to be launching an initiative to take over the web. It’s been pretty successful so far. You’d be hard pressed to name five mainstream sites that don’t have some kind of Facebook integration, whether that be the ability to log in with Facebook or a simple like or share button.

    Facebook is not stopping at the web though. Facebook may take over more and more of the physical world. This is strongly fueled by Facebook Places, announced last week. People can check in to physical locations, which will associate them with a Place page on Facebook, bringing the physical world into the social network, one check-in at a time.

    It doesn’t end there, however. Caitlin Fitzsimmons at AllFacebook talks about a couple other real world integrations with Facebook. One involves a Coca-Cola festival in Israel, where teenagers could "like" attractions on Facebook by waving RFID bracelets.

    The other instance is the use of QR codes for "liking" physical objects, courtesy of mobile marketing company Macanudos. "Our business idea is about looking for new concepts and applications that serve as a bridge between the physical and digital -known as the’ internet of things’ – … using the phone in this process," Gabriel Medina, head of Macanudos is quoted as saying.

    While this may not be an offering from Facebook itself, it doesn’t have to be. Businesses create their own Facebook pages and apps. Facebook provides the means for creation and for exposure. We’re likely going to see a growing number of instances in which the physical world is being linked to Facebook.

  • New Digg Rolls Out to Mainstream [Updated with Walkthrough Video]

    Yesterday, Digg gave publishers (including WebProNews) thousands of invitations to extend to their readers for the new version of Digg. Now today, Digg has begun rolling out the new version of the site to the mainstream.

    Digg founder Kevin Rose announced today (via Twitter) that they’re going forward with the launch:

    Launch day!, Digg v4 here we come: http://yfrog.com/c9qv1ljWed Aug 25 15:37:15 via Twitter for iPhoneKevin Rose
    kevinrose

    The new Digg is kind of like Digg meets Twitter/Facebook/Buzz, at least from the publisher’s perspective. It is much more publisher-friendly, which means publishers will be more eager to encourage sharing their content on Digg in hopes of some new web traffic.

    The way Digg is now set up may cater to just that. It’s much more about who you follow now, like the aforementioned social networks, or like a news reader. It will be interesting to see how users respond. They do after all already have these other services to choose from as well. It remains to be seen if there is a need for Digg in this mix.

     

    Walkthrough the new Digg with Kevin Rose from Digg Videos on Vimeo.

     

    The site seems to be moving pretty slow right now if it loads at all, so you might experience some hiccups as the new design rolls out.

    Follow WebProNews on Digg here.

  • MySpace Cleans Up its Profiles

    MySpace Cleans Up its Profiles

    MySpace has introduced new profiles for users, musicians, and celebrities. The goal, was to "clean things up", so MySpace is offering a newly designed MySpace profile and a theme gallery.

    "The new profiles offer clean and easy-to-use navigation and simplified organization of content, including a consistent theme throughout profile subpages (photos, playlists, videos and more)," MySpace’s Laurie Spindler tells WebProNews. "Better design tools accompany the new layout, giving users the opportunity to create a truly customized look for their individual profile."

    "The new theme gallery feature[s] dozens of unique designs by talented artists to allows users, musicians, celebrities, and brands to customize their profiles with themes from popular graphic designers and tools to personalize the layout of their page," she says.

    MySpace thinks the new look and feel will improve fan interaction for musicians. Musicians can actually upload more songs now as well. They can feature up to 25 songs.
     
    "To develop the new theme designs, MySpace worked with top artists and graphic designers such as Studio Number One (founded by Shepard Fairey), Justin Harder and Buff Monster to bring innovative themes to the MySpace community," says Spindler.

    "So far, more than 4 million users including musicians and celebrities such as Lady Antebellum, Silversun Pickups, Outkast, Thirty Seconds to Mars, Colbie Caillat, Russell Brand, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Eli Roth have upgraded to the new profiles," she says. "Even non-profits like Stand Up 2 Cancer and UNIFEM are taking advantage of the new profiles to engage advocates."

    Eli Roth MySpace Profile with New Profile Design

    There is a profile guide here, and if you’re a MySpace user, you can upgrade your profile by going here. 

    MySpace intends to roll out up to 40 themes in the coming weeks, and from the sound of it, more features as well.

  • Google Social Network Lets Users Keep Conversations Separate

    Google has launched some new features for its Orkut social network, which is popular in Brazil and India, though it has been trumped by Facebook in India according to new comScore data.

    Some believe the new features may represent some general social media thinking on Google’s part, which could potentially make an appearance in Google’s rumored "Google Me" social media project. This is purely speculation, but certainly not outside the realm of possibility.

    Orkut now lets users group friends, as seen in the following clip:

    "To make it easier for you to interact with your groups of friends, now you can open them from your homepage. Your groups will always be a click away from you, on the top of the page," explains Orkut product management director Victor Ribeiro. "When you click a group (for example, ‘college friends’), you’ll see updates, photos, videos and activities only from people who are part of that group. If you want to write them something, the scrap editor will automatically select everyone in the group and the privacy will be set to "Private" so you can share information that is relevant to that group only. And, of course, you can change that privacy setting before sending the message."

    "We know that sometimes we invite someone from work to a family party or we bring a gym friend to the office happy hour. That means: sometimes our groups of friends mix together. Thinking of this, you can easily add or remove as many people as you want from the recipients of a scrap," adds Ribeiro. "Oh, and yes, remember that the groups are yours only. Nobody else will know the names of your groups of friends. When you send something to the entire group, people will know who else can see the message, but they will not know the name you chose for the group within your orkut. Also, you can change and edit your groups whenever you want, the way you want it!"

    Facebook lets you group friends, and Twitter has lists, but these are more designed for your intake of information, as opposed to your output. If you tweet or post a status update, it’s still going to all of your friends/followers.

    Ribeiro talks about more new Orkut features here.

  • Murders Organized Using Facebook

    From time to time, we get a reminder of the true power of social media, and the fact that sometimes that power is used by evildoers. The latest example comes a CNN report about a Facebook "hit list".

    According to CNN’s Arthur Brice, three teenagers in Columbia, who were on a 69-name hit list posted on Facebook, have been murdered in the past ten days. He reports:

    The hit list on Facebook, which was posted August 17, gave the people named three days to leave the town of Puerto Asis or be executed, said Volmar Perez Ortiz, a federal official whose title is defender of the public.

    Police at first thought the posting was a joke, Perez said in a statement issued Saturday. But the publication of a second list with 31 additional names led authorities to convene a special security meeting Friday, Perez said.

    Brice has more details about the crimes.

    The Facebook format used for the hit list is unclear, and the company did not respond to a request for comment.

    This is not the first time we’ve seen social media abused, and it will almost certainly not be the last, but while a site like Facebook may provide a platform for threats, it’s important to keep in mind that it is only the platform, and a platform that is utilized much more often for good will (see the countless causes on the social network).

    Facebook Connects People - Some People are Evil

    It’s simply a means of communication. This is another example of why social media sites should not be held accountable for the actions of users (a problem YouTube has struggled with). Would you hold a paper company or the post office responsible for a handwritten hit list sent through the mail?

  • You Can’t Block Mark Zuckerberg From Your Facebook Profile

    Update: A Facebook spokesperson tells WebProNews, "This error isn’t specific to any one account.  It’s generated when a person has been blocked a certain large number of times.  In very rare instances, a viral campaign will develop instructing lots of people to all wrongly block the same person. The purpose of this system is to protect the experience for people targeted by these campaigns.  We’re constantly working to improve our systems and are taking a closer look at this one."

    Original Article: Those concerned about privacy with regards to Facebook will love this. If you try to block CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the site, Facebook won’t let you.

    With most Facebook profiles, you can click "Report/Block this person" if you don’t want them to be able to interact with you. Specifically, as Facebook says:

    If you block someone, they will not be able to find you in a Facebook search, see your profile, or interact with you through Facebook channels (such as Wall posts, Poke, etc.). Any Facebook ties you currently have with a person you block will be broken (for example, friendship connections, Relationship Status, etc.). Note that blocking someone may not prevent all communications and interactions in third-party applications, and does not extend to elsewhere on the Internet.

    The inability to block Zuckerberg was discovered by the creators of a site: blockzuck.com (via TechCrunch):

    BlockZuck.com

    Sure enough, if you actually do try to block Zuckerberg, you get this message:

    Block Failed

    One can only imagine that even if you could block "Zuck", he’d be able to get around this if he wanted. Then there’s the fact that its his site. Would you want people who have accounts on your site to be able to block you?

  • LinkedIn Updates iPhone App

    LinkedIn Updates iPhone App

    LinkedIn has announced the launch of LinkedIn for iPhone version 3.2, which the company says makes it easier to stay up to date and find important changes happening in your professional network.

    The app comes with some changes to how LinkedIn displays profile updates from connections. You can see more info about what changed from All Updates or Profiles.

    You can also tap on your connection’s name from a profile update to go to the top of their profile, or tap a section to jump to it. The app will also now inform you when your connections add a Twitter account, change their address or phone number, or add their birthday.

    LinkedIn - optimized for retina display"One of the most commonly used features in our current iPhone app is viewing who you have in common with another LinkedIn member," says LinkedIn’s Chad Whitney. "It’s a great way to build out your own network, and it’s also useful when you’re meeting someone new and need to know more about them to help start the conversation."

    "You can now see how many people you have in common right from the main profile screen," says Whitney. "We’ve also created a single view that lets you quickly switch between viewing who you have in common and viewing their full connections list."

    Finally, the app is optimized for the iPhone’s Retina Display, featuring new icons and images.

    Whitney says LinkedIn will have some "great things" coming in October and November that the company is excited about.
     

  • Using and Attracting Customers with Facebook Places

    Facebook Places is going to be huge for businesses. It already is. You’ve probably been hearing about all of the opportunities that come with check-in apps like Foursquare, Gowalla, etc. Facebook has half a billion users. This takes things to a whole new level.

    Do you intend to take advantage of Facebook Places for your business? Tell us about it.

    Now, not all of those users are using Places or even Facebook on mobile devices, but that doesn’t mean these users won’t see updates about people checking into your business from their friends.

    For the people that do use Places from their mobile devices, they’re presented with a list of nearby locations to check into any time they push the Places link. If you’re nearby, that means you. Clearly this opens a huge window for enticing customers to check into your place. You can offer discounts or other offers/incentives for some pretty good branding and word-of-mouth marketing.

    Facebook Places and Bing Maps

    Once a person checks into your business, that is put into the news feed of all of their friends. Those friends (not to mention the person checking in) can then go to your Place page and "like" it. I’m sure you can see the potential this feature has.

    Localeze provides business listings for Facebook Places, so that’s something else to consider. "Facebook is quickly becoming an important piece of a local business’ footprint giving them more visibility for current and potential customers," said Localeze President Jeff Beard. "Facebook Places is a very powerful social tool for businesses and consumers alike."

    WebProNews blog partner Chris Silver Smith has a good article about how local businesses can take advantage of Facebook Places, and simply getting familiar with them from a business standpoint. As mentioned in a previous article, Greg Sterling also has an interesting comparison between Facebook Places and Google Places.

    There has been a lot of talk about how Facebook Places will impact Foursquare, and the jury is still out on that one. Foursquare appears to be going along for the ride, letting its service be integrated with Facebook’s. Still, "check-in fatigue" may come into the picture, and users (Facebook has many more) may find it less and less necessary to utilize third party services to check in. Facebook could very well steamroll the "friendly competition".

    There’s an outside chance that Facebook could really help Foursquare and the like. Foursquare’s numbers reportedly shot up on the launch of Facebook Places, but I suspect this is just a getting-to-know-you kind of affair as the check-in concept was introduced to a much bigger user base. It will be interesting to see how those numbers hold up over time.

    As a business, I wouldn’t immediately start ignoring Foursquare, though you may want to consider putting Facebook front and center when it comes to your customer check-in strategy. There’s a much better chance your customers are Facebook users than Foursquare users.

    Will Foursquare reamain relevant? Tell us what you think.

  • Facebook: Location, Auto-Suggest and Fighting Spam

    Word around the Web is that Facebook will be announcing its long-awaited location feature today. While this has still not been confirmed, a mysterious account appeared on Twitter today, for @FacebookPlaces.

    Kim-Mai Cutler at InsideFacebook has a screenshot of a tweet from this account, which claimed to be the official account for "Facebook Places". The tweet read, "It’s true. Watch out for the Official announcement scheduled to begin at 4:30pm PT / 7:30pm ET".

    However, if you go to the account now, you are greeted with a message from Twitter saying the account has been suspended. Still, Cutler says the account was followed by numerous Facebook employees.

    Facebook did recently release a video channel called Facebook Live. This is a place where users can view Facebook events, so I’d be checking out that around 7:30 eastern if you’re interested.

    Facebook Live - New Video Channel

    WirelessWeek points to a survey from JiWire indicating that many consumers are willing to reveal their location data in exchange for more relevant advertising. Even still, given Facebook’s track record for privacy issues, it’s almost guaranteed that privacy will come into question around an location-based release from the company, whether or not concerns are justified.

    Auto Suggest for the Status Box

    While I don’t appear to be getting this feature, Mike Melanson at ReadWriteWeb reports that Facebook has begun automatically suggesting links to Facebook Pages, Groups, interests, and other users, from a drop-down list of suggestions as you type in the status box.

    It’s unclear whether this is a feature that is rolling out to everyone or simply a test.

    In other Facebook news, it was announced today that the company, along with Tata Communications, has joined the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group. "Our deep commitment to site security requires the development of robust technologies and active engagement with organizations like MAAWG.  We look forward to collaborating with the entire working group to aggressively fight messaging abuse."

  • Tales from the Twitter Side

    Tales from the Twitter Side

    Twitter announced a new feature today called "Twitter Tales". This is just a section to highlight stories from Twitter users about interesting uses of the service.

    The official description is: "How do you use Twitter? We asked dozens of our users that exact question. What resulted from their responses is a series of quirky and inspiring articles. We call them Twitter Tales."

    Twitter Tales has 3 sections: life, community, and humor. These may change at some point, but these are the categories that the currently feature stories fall into.

    In the life section, one user uses Twitter "as a form of therapy". In community, there is a crowd-sourced account aimed at helping people "avoid pitfalls on their daily commute", and in the humor section, one user provides what Twitter describes as "a witty and honest behind the scenes look into her blog writing".

    Twitter Tales

    When Facebook announced its 500 million-user milestone, it also launched a "Stories" app for sharing stories about how people have used Facebook. Twitter Tales certainly echoes that (not to mention Google’s Search Stories).

    Twitter users are encouraged to share their own tales by emailing tales@twitter.com.  Twitter Tales is accessible by the Twitter Blog.

  • Don’t Click the Link for the Facebook “Dislike” Button

    Many Facebook users have long awaited the arrival of a "dislike" button for status updates that they find dumb, repulsive, or just annoying. If you happen to see someone on the social network claiming to have found one, however, don’t buy it. It’s a scam.

    Sophos Senior Technology Consultant Graham Cluley points to the scam, saying, "It’s the latest survey scam spreading virally across Facebook, using the tried-and-tested formula used in the past by other viral scams including ‘Justin Bieber trying to flirt‘, ‘Student attacked his teacher and nearly killed him", "the biggest and scariest snake‘ and the ‘world’s worst McDonald’s customer’."

    Cluley has several screenshots of different parts of the scam that one might encounter (such as the one below). The perpetrators clearly went all out in their deception efforts.

    Facebook Dislike Button Scam - Image Credit - Sophos
    Image Credit: Sophos

    Keep in mind, there are variations of the actual status updates that claim to point to the dislike button. Don’t believe any of them. It’s probably best to ignore any such thing until Facebook makes an official announcement, unveiling a dislike button. I wouldn’t hold your breath for that either.

  • Facebook Creeps Up the Charts as 178 Million Americans Watch Online Video

    comScore released its Video Metrix data for July today. According to this, 178 million people in the U.S. watched online video content during the month, watching an average of 14.7 hours per user.

    During the month, Facebook moved up from the fourth position to the third position behind Yahoo properties, and of course Google properties at number 1. Facebook accounted for 46.6 million viewers.

    Hulu generated the highest number of video ad impressions at 783 million in July. Americans viewed nearly 3.6 billion video ads in all. NewTeeVee notes that four out of five Hulu videos are ads.

    Top Video Properties in July

    Ranked by Video Ads - Online Video Properties

    84.9% of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video during the month. The average video duration was 4.8 minutes. The average duration of online video ads was 0.4 minutes.

    Video ads accounted for 9.8% of all videos viewed and 0.9% of all minutes spent viewing video online.

  • LinkedIn Adds New Features to Recruiter

    LinkedIn has launched a couple new features for LinkedIn Recruiter, aimed at making it easier to manage projects and talent. They have added one-page project management and the ability to set reminders on profiles.

    "If you’ve ever run across a potential candidate who isn’t ready to move or needs to be guided through the recruitment process before they apply, in the past you’ve probably kept a task list offline to come back to that prospect to either keep them warm," says LinkedIn’s Prasad Gune. "With the new feature, you’ll be able to set a reminder on their profile, including a date and time due.  Your home page module shows the reminders that you’ve set on individual profiles by date so you don’t miss any opportunities to re-engage a potential candidate."

    "With a new feature in this release, every user will be able to control how projects show up on their personal homepage, and manage other project options in bulk," he says of the other new feature. "This includes the ability to search for project names, for those of you with tens/hundreds of projects! Not only will this allow you to streamline your user interface and help you focus on the projects you really care about, but removing projects you aren’t using also improves the performance of the application."

    Manage My Projects

    LinkedIn provides a video demo of the new features here. In addition, LinkedIn made a few other minor changes.

    They’ve introduced a new option to provide profiles in a Project either as a table or list. InMail now comes in the form of a dialog instead of a page. The "Save to Project" dialog now closes automatically upon save, and users of LinkedIn’s Talent Direct product will see a new section to review respondents. Also, the OFCCP tracking code is now referred to as "Tracking ID."

  • Facebook Acquiring Search Company with Google Connections

    According to a report from Kara Swisher at Boomtown, Facebook has acquired a company called Chai Labs, though this has yet to be confirmed by either company. Also not confirmed is the price, but it is estimated to be somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 million.

    Swisher speculates that the acquisition is more focused on acquiring talent, which would certainly fall in line with past Facebook acquisitions.

    "Our Technology platform enables publishers to easily customize and launch scalable, search-friendly sites in several verticals," says Chai Labs. "We seamlessly complement our partners’ editorial teams, and some of our most compelling implementations have occurred when editors and journalists have worked side-by-side with our platform."

    Chai Labs Gets Facebook's Interest"Our semantic search platform uses proprietary crawling, artificial intelligence and data mining technologies to analyze and extract insights from millions of real-time data points across the web," the company explains. "Our goal is to give consumers the most comprehensive, unbiased, up-to-date information they need to make informed and confident purchase decisions. We are laser-focused on simplifying complexity due to over abundance of online sources about a specific topic, leading to information overload. "

    Chai Labs was founded by a former Google exec, and counts names like Marc Andreessen, Reid Hoffman, and Joe Kraus of Google Ventures as its investors.

    Not only are the Google connections interesting, but so are the search implications that accompany the acquisition.

  • LinkedIn Gives Group Managers New Powers

    LinkedIn has launched some improvements to how groups are moderated. There are six basic changes.

    Group managers can now delete threads directly. This helps them actively fight spam by deleting content from the "more" tab in the thread.

    Managers can also set up email notifications for new groups posts. "If you want to clean out spam the minute it’s posted, as a group manager you can now get email alerts for every new post and delete spam straight from these emails," says LinkedIn’s Ian McCarthy.

    Users can subscribe to alerts from the activity option in "my settings".

    Managers can now delete inappropriate posts right from email updates, adding some convenience to the process. Managers and moderators will also soon be able to remove, block, and delete all contributions from one spammer right from the email.

    LinkedIn has made it easier to find and encourage group members to assist in moderation.

    Managers can encourage members to flag inappropriate content. "We also wanted to make it easier for all members of your group to help you weed out spam and inappropriate content," says McCarthy. "All posts and comments flagged as inappropriate by group members will be added to the group managers’ new moderation queue. In one swift move, you can delete or clear flags from posts as well as blacklist spammers with the powerful ‘remove member, block & delete contributions’ button."

    Finally, managers can automatically delete posts by setting a limit on the number of flags. The default is 10, but this can be adjusted.

    LinkedIn says it will be making more improvements to Groups in efforts to improve the quality of conversations.